Island Retreap
by Hobbit69
Summary: It's Harper's Island from the point of view of the Grim Reapers.
1. getting to know you

CHARACTERS

Georgia Lass (The Dead Girl) Died six years earlier when a toilet seat from the deorbitized Mir space station missed the pacific ocean and fell on her. Is sarcastic and has a foul mouth. Her day job is at Happy Time Temporary Services/ 1985-2003

Rube Sofer (The Boss) It is unclear how he died, but it is believed that he was a bank robber. He left a wife and daughter, Rosie, whom he called " Peanut ". Is now in charge of the Reapers and hands out assignments on yellow post-it notes. 1876-1926

Mason (The Screw-up) Died when he drilled a hole in his head trying to achieve the ultimate high. He is a British drug addict and alcoholic; Is like George's brother. And in love with Daisy. 1939-1966

Roxy Harvey (The Mom) Was strangled to death by a jealous roommate with the leg warmers she had accidentally invented. Is strong and confident. The only Reaper besides George who has a day job, police officer. 1960-1982

Daisy Adair (The Starlet) Died of smoke inhalation on the set of _Gone With the Wind. Was transferred to Seattle from New York. Is constantly talking about her many sexual escapades with classic stars. 1915-1938_

_Abby Mills (The Good Girl) Returns to Harper's Island after being gone for seven years. For her best friend's wedding_

_Henry Dunn (The Groom) Best friends with Abby, engaged to Trish. Used to spend every summer on the island with his family._

_Trish Wellington (The Bride) Is engaged to Henry, much to her father's dismay, is jealous of Henry's relationship with Abby, loves her family very much._

_Chloe Carter (The Flirt) One of the bridesmaids and Cal's girlfriend. She is sexy, intelligent, and impulsive. She has a strange curiosity for serial killers, including John Wakefield._

_Cal Vandeusen (The Outsider) A British doctor and Chloe's boyfriend. He loves Chloe so much that he tries to fit in with her friends._

_Jimmy Mance (The Old Flame) Abby's high school boyfriend, a local fisherman who is pleased about the wedding being on the island because Abby is coming home._

_Sherriff Charlie Mills (The Sherriff) Abby's father. Shot John Wakefield after he killed Sara Mills. Sent Abby away and now wants to reconcile with her._

_Thomas Wellington (Father-of-the-Bride) Trish's father and Katherine's husband. He is a conservative real estate mogul and doesn't trust Henry Dunn._

_Hunter Jennings (The Other Man) Trish's ex from college and is in the island at Thomas Wellington's urgency to stop Trish from marrying Henry._

_JD Dunn (The Black Sheep) Henry's younger brother. Is a disturbed young man who tried to kill himself. His childish antics make Henry's life miserable._

_Christopher "Sully" Sullivan (The Best Man) A fun loving frat boy whose buddies live vicariously through his conquests. Has been Henry's best friend since middle school._

_Marty Dunn (The Uncle) Henry and JD's uncle. Loves attention and wants to protect Henry from Tom Wellington. Pops pills and carries a bag full of money and a gun_

_Shea Allen (The Maid of Honor) Trish's sister. From the outside, she appears to have it all, a great husband, a beautiful daughter, and all the money in the world. Things aren't as they appear._

_Richard Allen (The Brother-in-Law) Shea's husband. A man who married into the Wellington family and business and lives everyday with the fact hanging over his head._

_Madison Allen (The Flower Girl) Shea and Richard's daughter. Cute and sweet, and horribly spooky. She's always saying things that indicate she knows more about what's going on than the adults._

_Katherine Wellington (The Stepmother) The very definition of a trophy wife, a woman who is closer in age to her step daughters than her husband._

_Danny Brooks (The College Buddy) Groomsman; One of Henry's best friends in college. He's thoughtful and always wants to do the right thing._

_Malcolm Ross (The Hustler) A groomsman; He's big boisterous and not only brings his own beer to a party, he brews it himself._

_Joel Booth (The Nerd) A groomsman who everyone calls Booth. He's a loyal friend who lacks some of the social graces of the other groomsmen._

_Beth Barrington (The Single Girl) A bridesmaid and Trish's college roommate. She is beautiful and energetic and wants to find a good man to love,_

_Lucy Daramour (The Socialite) A bridesmaid and one of Trish's childhood friends. Summered with the family and always carries a little dog named Gigi._

_Shane Pierce (The Townie) A local fisherman and Jimmy's best friend. He dislikes pretty much everyone. He really hates that Abby left Jimmy the way that she did._

_Kelly Seaver (The Outcast) Is a dark and brooding young woman who has a special connection to Abby; Both of their mothers were hung by John Wakefield._

_Nikki Bolton (The Biker Chick) An old friend of Abby's who manages the local bar, The Cannery. She is not afraid to say what she thinks._

_Maggie Krell (The Wedding Planner) Energetic manager of The Candlewick Inn. She knew Abby Henry and Trish when they were kids._

_Reverend Fain (The Preacher) Is going to oversee the wedding ceremony, has a hearing problem and must use hearing aids._

_Deputy Garrett (The Guard) Helps investigate the murders on the island. He also guards the jail at the police station._

_Cole Harkin (The Survivor) One of the officers attacked by Wakefield during his rampage. He was caught in a boat explosion that burned his face and the right side of his body._

_Deputy Patrick Lillis (The Deputy) One of Sherriff Mill's deputy, he was hired because his uncle was the sherriff's best man at his wedding. Not much of a cop._

_John Wakefield (The Legend) Went on a killing spree seven years ago on Harper's Island. Killed six, wounded five._

_Ben Wellington (The Cousin) Trish and Shea's cousin and Thomas's nephew._


	2. prolouge

Note: none of the characters or places belong to me. The Reapers are from a Showtime show that has been cancelled called Dead Like Me. I own nothing.

PROLOUGE

Once upon a time there lived a pretty but distant girl, who stopped caring about living, then a toilet seat fell from the sky and snuffed her out. It was a fiery ball of a part of a shitter that slammed into her at four hundred miles an hour. Then she cared, then she wanted her life back. Unfortunately, once taken it can't be returned, but she was given a new life. Now, she's a Grim Reaper with the External Forces division.

That's me, Georgia Lass, everyone calls me George. I died and am now a Reaper. How does it work? You might ask, let me explain it. You have to pay attention, it's a little complicated. If you're anything like me you just never gave a shit, so listen up, losers.

Death has a list of who is scheduled to die and when. This list is delivered to the head of each department, in out case, Rube Sofer gets the list. Rube gives us our assignments on a yellow post-it note. It may sound simple, but it isn't that easy. The post-it has a first initial, sometimes a middle initial, an address and an estimated time of death (ETD)

Each Reaper is given an unspecified quota to fill, meaning we aren't told how many souls we are supposed to collect and help move on, but after we collect our final soul, we are allowed to move on to the other side, some in this business call it getting a promotion. I like to think in seventy years or so, I get to go to Heaven. Not always true. Some people do go to Hell. I've seen it happen. It's not a pretty sight, but if you live bad, you die bad. As for me I never tried to be a good person or a bad person, so I think that I'm being punished in purgatory right now for that.

If a Reaper refuses to take a soul and the person somehow survives their appointment with death, their soul will wither and rot inside of their body. I've done it. Her name was Kristen, and she was six. I saved her from dieing in a train accident. Rube made me take her soul, because she wasn't supposed to be alive. Should a Reaper choose not to take the soul at all, and the person dies, their soul is trapped inside the body. I also learned this the hard way. The man endured his own autopsy. He had to watch the ME cut him up from inside his body. It was pretty horrible. He was terrorized by it. That was when I learned that I was meant to protect the souls. No matter what happened to the body, the souls could remain intact. So we prefer to take the soul before the death, so they don't feel it. Then, we help them crossover so that they aren't stuck here.

Deaths can temporarily be put off, I wouldn't advise it, by interfering in advance, without risk to the soul's wellbeing. But it has consequences. It really pisses off the gravelings (I'll explain later) and more people can die because of actions taken by someone who should have been dead.

Reapers have a body and can interact with both the living and dead. We can be ageless, drink as much as we want without hangover, and heal really fast. For example, during a reap, I got my finger cut off, that's right off, and I just stuck it back on. It wasn't so bad, I can feel it, but it's not like it is for humans, but in our way.

Groups of Reapers are divided into divisions. I work for External Influences. We deal with murder, suicide, and accidents. There are other divisions, like Pets, these are children Reapers, and Natural Causes. I knew one of them, Patty. She went down with the Titanic and used to work with Rube in External Influences, but transferred to Natural Causes. She got her lights three years ago.

Gravelings are mischievous gremlin creatures that cause the accidents that kill people. They are given a day off every few years, but they're still little shits. The human eye can't see them, but Reapers can, out of the corner of their eyes, but for some reason, I can see them fine. I don't know why, I think it's because I almost drowned when I was a kid, or was almost murdered on Halloween that same year, but I see them. I once reaped a guy who could see them, he was schizophrenic.

When a Reaper interferes with a reap, the gravelings declare open season on the Reaper. The relentlessly pester them until that soul is taken. I'm not the only one this happened to. Roxy once interfered with a man that she liked. She was a meter maid, and the man that was on her post-it was one of the only people who were nice to her after giving them a parking ticket. The gravelings got her too. It's a real bitch to be on their list, because they don't let up, at all.

My division meets at a restaurant called Der Waffel Haus, where Rube gives us our assignments. Besides Rube and me, the other Reapers include, Mason, a British man who died in 1966 while trying to achieve a permanent high. He drilled a hole in his head. Yeah, he was stoned. Mason still does drugs and drinks. He's a total fuck up, but he's like a big brother to me.

Daisy Adair transferred to Seattle from New York. She was killed in a fire on the set of _Gone With the Wind in 1938. She's had some kind of sexual encounter with nearly every star in the 30's and she isn't shy about telling everyone about this blow job or that hand job. It's how she got jobs. _

_Roxy Harvey was strangled to death with the leg warmers she invented by a jealous roommate in 1982. She's got an attitude, and the gun to back it up. Roxy's a cop. She's strong and confident. She could kick your ass._

_As for Rube, I'm not really sure how he died. There's a rumor in Natural Disasters that he's a bank robber who was shot by the cops in 1926. He left a wife and daughter named Rose, whom he called " Peanut " which he now calls me._

_Then there's me. When I died in 2003, at eighteen, I left a mother, Joy, a father, Clancy, and a little sister, Reggie. When I was alive, I didn't appreciate them enough. And now, I'm sorry. I just thought there would always be time. But life is funny like that. Some lives are long, some are short, some are really short. But Death comes, whether you're ready or not, and there's no stopping it. It comes at the appointed time, and whether I like it or not, I have to come with it._


	3. whap

Note: none of the characters or places belong to me. The Reapers are from a Showtime show that has been cancelled called Dead Like Me. I own nothing.

CHAPTER ONE: WHAP

The morning that I got to go on " vacation " started like any other. I got up and dressed. It was warm out, so I put on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt with a pair of white flip flops. I went outside and got the paper. I could hear Daisy and Mason fighting over who got to use the bathroom first. I made a pot of coffee, because without some, I'm nothing in the morning. After it was ready, I sat down at the kitchen table and drank a cup while I read my paper.

I had taken two weeks off of work at my day job, Happy Time Temporary Services, for vacation. Rube had told me that it was important that I do it, so I did. I took two weeks because I figured I would take a week to do what he wanted me to do and a week for me.

After finishing my coffee, with two sugars and a little bit of milk, I left for Der Waffel Haus, where I was going to have breakfast with Rube. When I arrived, I parked my red mustang convertible, which I had because of a reap. Rube gave me his bike so that I could get around, I locked it up in front of Der Waffel Haus and someone stole it! That day, I had a reap in a mall, the guy had a red mustang convertible, so now I have a red mustang convertible.

I sat down with Rube, who was having waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Kiffany, the waitress, asked me if she could get me anything.

" I'll have what Rube is having. " I answered.

" Coffee?" she asked. I nodded to her. And she went to get my order.

" Well, Rube, what's new today?" I asked.

Rube took a bite of his waffles and said, after swallowing, " you and I are going on a trip. Like a real vacation."

" Like a real working vacation." I murmured

" You know it, Peanut." he said. Rube could hear anything. I loved Rube like a dad.

My dad had left his family after I died. He had been sleeping with one of his grad students. He was a Professor of English at the university that I dropped out of before I died. So Rube was like a father to me, at least recently. My dad used to be a good father, but he lost his way.

" Hey, Peanut," Rube said, jarring me from my thoughts, he put a post-it on the table in front of me. " Take care of this, then go home, and pack, meet me here at 2:30."

I looked at the my reap.

B WELLINGTON

BENEATH THE WELLINGTON YACHT

ETD 3:11

This isn't until this afternoon!" I exclaimed.

" And you and I have to be on that boat when it leaves. It's scheduled to leave at 3:00."

I'M GUESSING IT'S GOING TO BE A LITTLE LATE.

I got out of the booth, and Kiffany came with my breakfast, already in a to go box, and my coffee the way I like it in a cup. I handed her a ten and told her to keep the change.

The drive to the docks was uneventful and I found the Wellington yacht easily. It was the huge white one with the pink balloons and the huge banner that read, "CONGRATUDLATIONS HENRY AND TRISH"

I looked at my post-it, BENETH THE WELLINGTON YACHT

CRAP

I'm not a strong swimmer, remember me telling you that I almost drowned, I never have been, but you only die once, right?

I leapt in and swam, as best I could, to the yacht and ducked my head under the chilly water, hating Rube for what he was making me do. Finding my reap wasn't easy. The water was murky and dirty. When I did at last find him, I realized that whoever had done this was sick. He was tied to the propeller rod with an oxygen tank.

I ran my hand down his arm, removing his soul so he wouldn't be traumatized by dieing.

My lungs burned as I resurfaced. I sucked in air greedily and looked at the dock. A young man with blond hair watched me come up. SHIT

" Are you all right?" he asked , helping me out of the water.

" I'm fine, thanks." I said, wringing out my hair.

" Do you need some clothes, or anything?" he asked me.

" No, thank you." I always keep extra clothes in the trunk of my car. I've gone to work covered in blood too many times not to be prepared for anything.

" How about a towel, or a warm blanket, we can dry your clothes for you."

I looked at him. This wasn't a friendly helper, this was a player trying to get me into bed with him. He was working it for me, too bad it wasn't working.

" Look, buddy, I'm not going to sleep with you, so you might as well forget it. Go on back the way you came and leave me alone. Bye."

I went to my car, got a towel out of the trunk and draped it over the driver's seat, not wanting to change my clothes just in case that guy followed me and watched.

I drove home and packed for a trip to the island.

That afternoon, Rube and I arrived at the Wellington yacht and left our bags with an employee. I'd worn a white sun dress with a light blue cardigan and Rube had been wearing a yellow button down shirt with nice slacks. We each took a champagne and sipped it.

" How did your reap go?" he asked. Rube usually asked us how it all goes. He likes to run a smooth ship.

" Not bad. I'm just glad that I'm not the one tied to the bottom of this boat. Thank God he isn't going to feel it."

At exactly 3:11 pm, the boat cast off. I looked behind the boat to see a stream of blood. When I turned the soul of the dead man was standing there.

" What just happened to me?" he asked

" You died," I said. " But look on the bright side. I have a feeling that this isn't going to be the best wedding ever, anyway. So you get to miss it."

" Trish is my cousin. We're practically best friends."

Rube left to talk to a man with salt and pepper hair. I assumed that he was the owner of the yacht because he just looked rich.

" What's your name?" I asked.

" Ben. Ben Wellington."

He seemed so sad to be dead. I knew how that felt.

" Ben, trust me, being dead isn't too bad, it's true that I haven't been where you get to go, but I will one day, and where you are about to go is going to be great. There won't be pain or sickness, or war. It's peaceful and beautiful, and you're going to be fine."

The dead's path to the afterlife come in the form of lights, for a little girl it may be a carnival, it's different for everyone. For Ben Wellington, it was a board room. The lights are supposed to be what makes you the happiest. I guess Ben just really loved to work.

" Hi again." said a voice behind me. I turned to find the guy who had helped me out of the water and tried to get me to sleep with him. " You clean up nice. But I personally liked the drowned rat look."

" Fuck off, Bucko." I said, walking away.

I'll admit that I was fighting my attraction to him from the beginning. Did I want to sleep with him, no, would I eventually want to, yeah, probably.

I saw a group of girls sitting on the lower deck, talking, and joined them. For a while in my past, I wanted to be part of a group. Now I am part of a group, and I'd rather be a loner again. The girls introduced themselves.

There was a pretty woman with pouty lips named Chloe Carter, blond who looked athletic named Beth Barrington, and a woman with a yappy dog named Gigi, that's the dog, not her, her name was Lucy Daramour. She let me know that she wasn't just a socialite, that she was in law school, and had a great boyfriend named Ryan.

There is a set of rules for Reapers. We aren't supposed to get close to people especially if we are going to reap them. But I liked these girls. It was hard not to like them. And it would prove even harder to reap them.

Let me tell you here and now, that contrary to popular belief, Grim Reapers don't kill people. We take and ferry souls. If you're going to blame someone for the death of a friend, blame a graveling. That's what I do.

Chloe told us about a man named John Wakefield who snapped and killed six people. She mentioned a girl named Abby. She pointed the girl out to me, and told me that her mother had been killed by Wakefield. I left the girls and found her. I wanted to talk to her. She'd lost someone close to her. I wasn't allowed to speak to my family, so we kind of had something in common.

" Abby?" I said. She turned and smiled. She seemed very friendly.

" Hi." she said. " I guess people were talking about me?"

" Yeah. I'm Georgia. Everyone calls me George."

Abby shook my hand, saying, " It's nice to meet you."

" I know how it feels to lose a loved one. My family is lost to me. For six years now." They may as well be dead for all that I can do with them.

" I'm so sorry. If you ever want to talk, you just come to me. I'm a good listener."

" You're sweet." I heard Rube call my name. " I'll see you later."

I walked up the steps to Rube who handed me another post-it. " Another one? Fuck, Rube, we haven't even gotten to the island yet."

I know, Peanut, but it's going to be a long week, and I want to get this over with. You know this isn't the first time I came here? I was here seven years ago."

" You reaped the Wakefield victims?"

" So you heard about him, did you?" I nodded. " Well, Peanut, there were only six that time. This time it's going to be much worse. They want to wipe out everyone on the island. Watch your back."

M DUNN

FOOTBRIDGE IN WOODS

ETD 6:24

I didn't recognize the name, but when I arrived at the footbridge, I recognized the face. It was Henry's uncle, Marty. He had come to the yacht with a mariachi band. Well at least I didn't know him. I jogged across the bridge and 'accidentally' ran into him. I ran my hand down his chest flirtatiously and took his soul. I left him and stood back in the shadows and waited for him to die.

I watched the boards under him break and him fall through, hanging half in and half out. He called for help from an unseen figure. I saw the blade begin to cut into him, right in the middle. Uncle Marty screamed and shot the gun he'd been carrying , blindly firing hoping to hit the man who was cutting him in half.

He'd put up a pretty good fight, but failed to hit his attacker, and was subsequently cut in half. Uncle Marty's spirit stood next to me as we watched his attacker drag him away.

" Am I dead?" he asked, as so many do.

" Yeah, you are." I answered, nodding.

" Damn. There were so many women that I'd have-"

" Gonna stop ya there, Marty."

I didn't want to hear about the groomsmen's hero. His lights came in the form of a bunch of topless women.

"Is that for me?" he asked

" Well it ain't for me."

He looked back at me before he went into the lights. " Just so you know," he said. " You were at the top of my list of bangers." Then he was gone.

I returned to The Candlewick with a heavy heart. I'd reaped one of the last members of the groom's family. I had a feeling that this wedding wasn't going to go according to plan. And it was going to be long week for me.


	4. crackle

Note: none of the characters or places belong to me. The Reapers are from a Showtime show that has been cancelled called Dead Like Me. I own nothing.

CHAPTER TWO: CRACKLE

The next morning, I put on a pair of jeans, a black tee-shirt, and a jacket, and went downstairs to have breakfast with Rube. He'd ordered me a bowl of fruit and a banana nut muffin. The waitress poured me a cup of coffee.

" So, what's on the agenda today?" I asked, pouring milk into my coffee.

" We're going on a scavenger hunt/" he answered.

In my warped mind, those words went to visions of us finding body parts and someone winning a prize.

" What kind of scavenger hunt? " I asked.

Rube said nothing, just handed me two post-its, keeping one for himself. I sighed as I read them, I should have known that we couldn't just have fun, that it had to be a working scavenger hunt, at least for one of them.

TL FAIN

WOODS OUTSIDE OF CHURCH

ETD 10:58 AM

L DARAMOUR

WOODS OFF OF BEACH

ETD 9:24 PM

Daramour was Lucy's last name. 'L' was her first initial. I sighed noticeably this time.

" What is it?" Rube asked.

" I know one of my reaps." I answered. " I can't reap Lucy, I like her."

" You'll find that you'll be reaping friends this week, Peanut. But if it'll make you feel better, I'll take her, and you can have mine, this won't happen again."

Normally Rube followed the rules to a T, but he'd just broken one for me. I took his post-it and read it, luckily, I didn't know this one.

K SEAVER

205 WEST SICAMORE AVE

ETD 9:15 PM

Little did I know, that Rube did know her. Seven years earlier, he had come to Harper's Island, and reaped this girl's mother, and he didn't want to take the daughter's soul as well. That had been his motiviation for trading me reaps. Rube had seen the girl at her mother's funeral, and knew how hurt she was, how much she wanted to join her mom. And now someone was going to help her see her mom again. Unfortunately, I had to be there for it too.

Rube and I met up with the party about a half hour before my reap. When you're a Reaper, time is very important. If you're five seconds late, you miss your reap, and they feel their death. It could be a blow to the head with a canoe, happened to me, or a bear attack, that was Mason. The point is, that you should always be on time.

Each of us were handed a red bandana. Red. Great, the color of blood, I guess that they knew that three people were going to die that day. Three. Who can be in so many places? It'd be nice to know who was doing this. But a Reaper's place is not to interfere. We are a fly on the wall. We don't get involved, we just take the soul and get out. Don't make friends, it's easier that way.

The groom, Henry Dunn explained that we would have to go to four locations on the island, do certain tasks and get champagne bottles, the first team to collect all four was the winner. There was no prize. Just bragging rights.

Rube and I met up with the other two on our team. One was Beth Barrington, whom I'd met on the boat over. The other was a boisterous man named Malcolm Ross. Abby found me, she had her blue bandana on her wrist.

"Oh man, I was hoping you'd be blue."

" Sorry." I said.

A British man kept watching Chloe. " Hey," I said, " Stop staring, it makes you kindda creepy."

Abby laughed. " This is Cal Vandeusen. He's Chloe's boyfriend. Sully, Chris Sullivan, the blond guy on the yellow team traded his bandana with Cal. Cal fell for it."

" So he wants to sleep with Chloe now, huh?"

Abby looked at me. " Now?"

" I met him the morning before we came. He was hitting on me. I don't think he knows that I'm here, and I prefer it that way."

" Someone else who doesn't fall for Sully's frat boy tricks. Oh he's a frat boy. I met him while visiting Henry. He's been trying to sleep with me for years. But I've only wanted one person in my life."

I thought back to the day we arrived, a fisherman had met her on the docks, and they'd exchanged banter like old friends.

" It wouldn't happen to be a hottie fisherman, would it?" Abby looked at me, shocked. " What? Was it supposed to be a secret, because you weren't really hiding it, and he was giving you the look. What's his name?"

" Jimmy. Jimmy Mance."

I smiled at her, and prayed that J MANCE never showed up on a post-it.

" Come, on, I want you to meet some people."

I was introduced to Henry Dunn, and Trish Wellington, when I met them, my skin crawled a little, but they seemed like nice people, and looked to be very in love. Abby then brought me over to the yellow team.

" Hey guys," she said. " This is George. Georgia. I don't know your last name."

" Lass." I said.

" Well, George, this is Danny Brooks, and Joel Booth. You've already met Chloe, and Sully of course."

" So your name is George." Sully said. " You got the parts to go with that name?"

" That's something you'll never find out, now isn't it?" I replied

Danny hooted his laughter. " She got you, man. I told you one day, a girl would come along and shoot you down, you always thought that it would never happen."

" George." Rube called.

I said good bye and my team left. We were starting at the church, where we had to take a photo in a bridal veil or a top hat. Rube gave me his Polaroid. I checked my watch and looked around. The reverend came to us and said that he was going for a walk in the woods, with scones of course, if the next group came, he asked that we tell them what they needed to do. Beth told me that he would be the preacher overseeing the wedding , that his name was Fain.

I caught up with him and rubbed my hand down his back, I looked at Rube and nodded, then followed him. And, as I've done for the last six years, I watched. I watched his foot get caught in the rope trap and I watched him flip upside down. I closed my eyes, however as he was decapitated. I'm not the first in our group to reap a member of the church. Daisy once reaped a priest. And she was half Catholic at the time.

Reverend Fain's soul was quiet, and I knew why. He couldn't hear me. I saw the hearing aid lying on the ground. I smiled to myself as his lights came and he walked into the arms of what I could only assume was his version of God.

I returned to the church, and Rube said that they had our bottle. Beth carried it, and smiled at Malcolm. It wasn't exactly the coupling that I would have pictured, but they seemed to really like each other. They kept giving one another looks that spoke feelings.

We completed the other three tasks without incident. It wasn't until we were on our way back to The Candlewick that we were met by someone in a red pick-up. He was incredibly rude.

" Hey!" He yelled. " Where's JD?"

" JD?" I asked Beth.

" JD is Henry's younger brother." she told me then turned to him. " Who are you?"

" I'm Shane Pierce. I need to pay a little visit to JD. I owe him something."

" We don't know where he is." I said.

" Don't lie to me. I went to The Candlewick, and he wasn't there. I figured he'd be doing the wedding stuff."

" If you speak to her like that again, I'll have to drop you." Rube said. " Now take your redneck truck and go fish, do something, but don't ever speak to anyone like that again in my presence. If George says we don't know, then we don't know. Move along."

GO RUBE.

That night, I went to 205 west Sicamore Avenue, and knocked on the door.

A young woman with dark hair and tattoos answered.

" Miss Seaver?"

" Yes?" she answered suspiciously.

" I'm a writer from Seattle, and I'm writing a novel about John Wakefield, and I understand that your mother was killed by him, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

" I'm actually about to go out. Can you come back tomorrow?"

I nodded and held out my hand to shake hers. She took my hand and I slid my left hand down her arm. " I'll see you later."

A few minutes later, a man knocked on her door. She didn't even fight when he walked in nor did she fight as he put the noose around her neck. She did struggle a little against the noose as she choked to death.

" You're not really a writer, are you?" her soul asked.

"No." I said.

She went into her lights smiling. Her mother had come to get her, and I felt so bad. She was very young, had lost her mother, and was changed by it. She'd never gotten over it, and now, she had the chance to, now that she was dead.


End file.
